Tag: Russia

The Meeting Was A Dud

Last Friday Donny and Putin held their head to head talks on ending the Ukraine debacle….and how did that go?

President Trump and Vladimir Putin spoke for three hours on Friday, but they did not cinch an agreement to end the war in Ukraine. “We haven’t quite got there, but we’ve got some headway,” Trump said at a cordial news conference afterward, reports the New York Times. “There’s no deal until there’s a deal.” Trump said he would now call Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky and other world leaders to update them on the details of the talks, which were not divulged during the news conference. Trump said some major sticking points remained, without elaborating, but he also called the meeting “extremely productive.”

Putin, for his part, praised Trump and thanked his “dear neighbor” for hosting the “long overdue” summit, per the Washington Post. He said the two nations had reached an “understanding” on a path toward peace, and he warned Europe not to “torpedo the nascent progress,” per the AP.

  • “Russia is interested in ensuring that the settlement in Ukraine is long-term,” he said. “I hope that today’s agreements will be a starting point for achieving peace in Ukraine.”
  • Putin also said he agreed with Trump’s past statements that the war would not have started had Trump been in the White House.
  • He also invited Trump to come to Moscow for another summit at some point. Trump joked that he might take “some heat” about that but called it a possibility.

“Extremely productive”?

In what sense?

President Trump said on his flight to Alaska that there would be “severe consequences” if Russian President Vladimir Putin didn’t agree to a ceasefire during their meeting Friday. “I’m in this to stop the killing,” the president said on Air Force One. But Putin did not agree to stop the fighting, there were no consequences, and by Saturday, Trump had abandoned the idea of a ceasefire altogether. The result, Peter Baker writes in a New York Times analysis, is that Putin has been given a free pass to keep waging his war on Ukraine indefinitely, without fear of penalty.

“Even in the annals of Mr. Trump’s erratic presidency, the Anchorage meeting with Mr. Putin now stands out as a reversal of historic proportions,” Baker writes. A former US ambassador to NATO under Barack Obama said Trump’s longtime priority changed fast after the friendly tarmac greeting, chatty limousine ride, and brief sessions. “He got played again,” said Ivo Daalder. “For all the promises of a ceasefire, of severe economic consequences, of being disappointed, it took two minutes on the red carpet and 10 minutes in the Beast for Putin to play Trump again.”

Skipping the ceasefire step makes the peace talks based on Ukraine turning over territory it controls to Russia, per the Times. The tough new sanctions Trump had threatened to impose on Russia, complete with deadlines, appear to be off the table, as well, per a CNN analysis by Stephen Collinson. “Because of what happened today, I think I don’t have to think about that now,” Trump told Fox News later Friday.

As usual the gas bag of a president accomplished NOTHING that he said he would…..as usual any threats made were idle words.

Next up is a visit from Zelenskyy today…..but what will this accomplish…..will it be yet another ambush?

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he’ll meet US President Trump in Washington on Monday after a Russia-US summit in Alaska ended without an agreement to stop the fighting in Ukraine after 3 1/2 years, reports the AP. Meanwhile, in a reversal only a few hours after meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump said an overall peace agreement, and not a ceasefire, was the best way to end the war. That statement echoes Putin’s view that Russia isn’t interested in a temporary truce and instead is seeking a long-term settlement that takes Moscow’s interests into account. More:

  • Zelensky: The Ukrainian leader, who didn’t receive an invite to the summit, said he had a “long and substantive” conversation with Trump early Saturday and that he’s looking forward to meeting with Trump in DC to “discuss all of the details regarding ending the killing and the war.”
  • Trump: The US president spoke to Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Friday after the summit, calling his Putin get-together a “10 out of 10” and a “very warm meeting between two very important countries,” per Fox News. “I think we’re pretty close to a deal,” he added, but “Ukraine has to agree to it.”
  • Trump II: The president wrote early Saturday on Truth Social that “it was determined by all that the best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a Peace Agreement, which would end the war, and not a mere Ceasefire Agreement, which often times do not hold up.” He added that he’d be willing to have up a three-way meeting with himself, Zelensky, and Putin “if all works out,” which he reiterated to Hannity. “Not that I want to be there, but I want to make sure it gets done—and we have a pretty good chance of getting it done,” he told the Fox News host, per Fox.
  • Europe: The general sentiment among leaders on the Continent is one of wariness, especially with one big issue at hand for Europeans, per the New York Times: “They have no strategy of their own for bringing the war to a close, let alone for defeating Moscow.”
  • Ukrainians I: The vast majority of people in Ukraine don’t trust Putin, and the sentiment around the summit is one of “deep skepticism,” per the BBC. “Many soldiers gave their lives for these territories, for the protection of our country,” a Ukrainian sniper says. “A freeze [on the front lines] would mean demobilization would begin, wounded and exhausted soldiers would be discharged, the army would shrink, and during one of these rotations the Russians would strike again. But this time, it would be the end of our country.”
  • Ukrainians II: A minority of Ukrainians, either due to war fatigue or due to pro-Russian sentiment, are OK with compromises on ceding territory. “My belief is that the war should be stopped in any way possible,” a retired factory worker in Donetsk tells the BBC. “The further it goes, the worse it becomes.”

What will this repeated meetings with Donny actually accomplish?

Is any of this truly about ending this deadly conflict?

Or is it just semi-clever stagecraft?

I Read, I write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

The Donny & Vlad Show

Today is the big event (their words not mine) the showdown between Little Donny and Vlad the Invader on the shores of Alaska….there is lots of speculation on just what this will accomplish….

Even Donny has weighed in….

So what are the odds that Friday’s summit between President Trump and Vladimir Putin will bring peace to Ukraine? In an interview on Fox News Thursday morning, Trump floated a surprisingly specific prediction: He told Brian Kilmeade he sees a “25% chance that this meeting will not be a successful meeting,” reports the BBC. Trump didn’t elaborate on potential snags, though territorial concessions were seen as the biggest hurdle. The summit is scheduled to begin at 3:30pm ET, and it appears the world will know quickly how things went.

Trump told Fox he’d fly back to Washington if the summit is a bust. “If the meeting doesn’t end well, I’ll just have a press conference and get out,” he said, per the Washington Post. But if things go well, Trump and Putin could hold a joint news conference, and Trump even suggested that Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky could immediately fly to Alaska for a three-way follow-up meeting. “I don’t know where we’re going to have the second meeting, but we have an idea of three different locations, and we’ll be including the possibility, because it would be by far the easiest of staying in Alaska,” Trump said.

Then there is Vlad and what he will possibly bring to the negotiating table….

When Vladimir Putin and President Trump meet in Alaska, the Russian leader is set to tempt Trump with financial incentives to back Moscow over Ukraine, the Guardian reports. Putin’s adviser said the “huge untapped potential” of Russia-US economic relations will be up for discussion, and said the leaders would talk about the possibility of “further developing bilateral cooperation, including in the trade and economic sphere.” He noted, “This cooperation has huge and, unfortunately so far, untapped potential.”

The quickly scheduled talks, held at Putin’s request, mark the Russian leader’s first meeting with a US president on US soil since 2007. Putin is reportedly bringing prominent economic advisers, including his finance minister, to appeal to Trump’s business interests, sources tell the newspaper. The Kremlin’s message, according to one former official who spoke anonymously: “Putin knows Trump sees the world through a business lens, and will pitch a peace on his terms as the gateway to lucrative opportunities.”

If happens will those financial benefits favor Donny or the country?

Does anyone think this will be a success?  Or will it be another infamous Donny ambush of a world leader?

This is a scenario on how things could go in Alaska….(a well thought out scenario)….but a short history of the two leaders meetings over a few3 years….

If you consider the history of Donald Trump’s public relationship with Vladimir Putin, you won’t be surprised that there’s a fair amount of concern in Ukraine and among Ukraine’s European allies at what might happen when the two meet in Alaska tomorrow for their summit.

While it’ll be their first face-to-face meeting of Trump’s second presidency, the pair has met previously on six occasions and, as we know, spoken fairly frequently over the phone.

The first face-to-face meeting was at the G20 summit in Hamburg in 2017, just months into Trump’s first term. The pair spent two hours of a scheduled 35-minute meeting talking about all things from Syria to North Korea. It was constructive and cordial, they said. Later they talked during a summit dinner in an exchange that was only witnessed by Putin’s interpreter, the nature of which was not reported.

https://theconversation.com/how-the-trump-putin-summit-could-play-out-263220

What will be the end game this time?

Or will this just be another rally demonizing someone that Donny does not like?

Any thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Donny Goes To Russia

There is a supposed meeting between Donny and Putin to negotiate a ceasefire and stop all the BS….in and around Ukraine.

Why Russia?

Well the meeting is not in Russia it is in Alaska….but apparently the ‘stable genius’ does not know that Alaska is a state and no long belongs to Russia.

President Donald Trump appeared to mix up Russia with Alaska ahead of his meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, during a White House press conference about crime in Washington, DC and his plans to deploy the National Guard and put the city’s police under his control.

Trump delivered the news from the podium in the press briefing room — joined by Attorney General Pam Bondi, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and newly confirmed DC U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro — where he decried the level of crime in Washington, DC.

“This is a tragic emergency, and it’s embarrassing for me to be up here,” Trump told reporters. “You know, I’m going to see Putin. I’m going to Russia on Friday. I don’t like being up here, talking about how unsafe and how dirty and disgusting this once-beautiful capital [is].”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-putin-meeting-russia-alaska-ukraine-war-b2805880.html

He’s an idiot!

Then there is VP Vance thumping his weezy chest….

Vice President JD Vance explained that the White House was done funding the war in Ukraine. He said President Donald Trump would allow Europe to buy American weapons for Ukraine.

“The president and I certainly think that America [is] done with the funding of the Ukraine war business,” the Vice President told Fox News’s Maria Bartiromo on “Sunday Morning Futures.”

“We want to bring about a peaceful settlement to this thing. We want to stop the killing, but Americans, I think, are sick of continuing to send their money, their tax dollars, to this particular conflict.” He continued, “But if the Europeans want to step up and actually buy the weapons from American producers, we’re okay with that, but we’re not going to fund it ourselves anymore.”

(antiwar.com)

They want to stop the killing but will supply the weapons if the money is right.

The one thing that Ukraine said they would not do to end the conflict is lose land mass….but Donny has another plan….

President Trump said on Monday that there will be “land swapping” between Russia and Ukraine as part of a potential peace deal and pushed back on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s public rejection of ceding any territory to Moscow.

“I was a little bothered by the fact that Zelensky was saying, ‘Well, I have to get constitutional approval.’ I mean, he’s got approval to go into war and kill everybody, but he needs approval to do a land swap — because there’ll be some land swapping going on,” Trump told reporters.

The president is gearing up for a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska this Friday and said that after the talks, he will relay Moscow’s “parameters” to end the war to Ukraine and the US’s European allies. “If it’s a fair deal, I will reveal it to the European Union leaders and to the NATO leaders and also to President Zelensky,” he said. “I may say, ‘lots of luck, keep fighting,’ or I may say we can make a deal.”

According to reports from The Wall Street Journal, Putin has conveyed to the US that he would end the war if Ukraine withdrew its forces from the territory it still controls in Donetsk in the eastern Donbas region. The reports suggest Moscow would be willing to accept freezing the lines in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, a potential climbdown from Moscow’s earlier demand for a full Ukrainian withdrawal from both oblasts.

(antiwar.com)

Okay there is the major points of the upcoming ‘summit’…..

Will we have a deal or was this just another waste of time?

And Alaska is still our 49th state no matter what the ‘stable genius’ thinks.

This ought be a fun summit. (Sarcasm in case one missed it)

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

When Will It End?

It being the conflict between Ukraine and Russia.

Donny is planning to meet with Putin and Zelenskyy to take up the conflict and a possible way to end it….

President Trump is preparing to meet soon with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the war on Ukraine, administration officials said, picking up on a suggestion made by the Kremlin during the US special envoy’s visit there on Wednesday. Trump is open to including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the talks, the Wall Street Journal reports. Although he praised “great progress” made in Steve Witkoff’s meeting with Putin, Trump acknowledged that a ceasefire would not begin by Friday, the deadline he had imposed.

Trump told European leaders, including Zelensky, in a phone call Wednesday that the meeting could take place next week, per the New York Times. Ukraine and Russia apparently hadn’t officially agreed to the meeting; Trump told reporters later, “There’s a very good prospect that they will.” He didn’t say where a meeting would be held. Trump would be up against suspicion that Putin wants a meeting to drag out peace negotiations to allow attacks on Ukraine to continue and to head off US sanctions on Russia’s energy customers. Hours after the Putin-Witkoff talks, Trump placed another 25% tariff on India, a buyer of Russian oil.

There have been suggestions that Putin would bring up an in-person meeting after making no moves toward peace; Trump has not met with him since retaking office in January. “It seems that Russia is now more committed to a ceasefire,” Zelensky said in his nightly address to the nation. “The pressure on them is working.” Interviewed Wednesday on Fox Business, Secretary of State Marco Rubio sounded like a meeting is not imminent, per the AP. “A lot has to happen before that can occur,” he said. A specialist at the Council on Foreign Relations was skeptical of the idea, per the Washington Post, saying Putin has always wanted to meet without having reached any deal. “A bilateral meeting is always a victory for the Russian side,” Liana Fix said, “a very successful diversion for him from the momentum of pressure that was building up.”

So what are the chances for a solution?

My thought is it will be nothing earth shaking….if anything it could be another Trump ambush.

As the war rages on what do the people of Ukraine want….not what “Z” Man wants?

Gallup released a new poll on Thursday that found 69% of Ukrainians favor a negotiated end to the war with Russia as soon as possible, while just 24% want to keep fighting until “victory,” a near complete reversal of public opinion from when Russia invaded more than three years ago.

When Gallup first asked the question to Ukrainians in 2022, it found 72% wanted to continue fighting and just 22% wanted a negotiated settlement. As the war progressed, the number of Ukrainians who favored a peace deal increased, and it became a majority for the first time when Gallup released a poll in November 2024, finding that 52% wanted negotiations to end the conflict.

While the majority of Ukrainians want to see the war end, the new Gallup poll found that they don’t think it will happen anytime soon. Just one quarter of respondents think it’s likely the fighting will end within 12 months, while 68% believe peace is unlikely.

The poll also found that Ukrainians have a significantly less favorable view of the US since the early days of the war. Just 16% of Ukrainians approve of the performance of US leadership compared with 66% in 2022. But the majority of Ukrainians, 70%, still believe the US needs to play a role in peace talks.

https://news.antiwar.com/2025/08/07/poll-69-of-ukrainians-want-negotiated-end-to-war-as-soon-as-possible/

As usual it is not what the people in Ukraine want but what the US desires and that desire is a continuation.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Russia: Another Ultimatum

After he was elected to his second non-consecutive term as president Donny promised to end the Russia/Ukraine mash-up within 24 hours….(damn that is the longest 24 hours I have spent)….he has issued another of his now famous ultimatums….how will Russia respond?

“I use trade for a lot of things,” President Trump said Monday. “But it’s great for settling wars.” During a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office, Trump threatened to hit Russia with “very severe tariffs” if there was no deal to end the Ukraine war within 50 days, the AP reports. “We’re going to be doing secondary tariffs if we don’t have a deal in 50 days. It’s very simple,” Trump said. “And they’ll be at 100%. And that’s the way it is.” The Washington Post reports that with “secondary tariffs,” Trump was likely referring to tariffs on countries that buy Russian energy, not to Russian exports to the US. A bipartisan group of more than 80 senators has been urging Trump to hit buyers of Russian oil and uranium with 500% tariffs, the New York Times reports.

  • Trump described Vladimir Putin as a “tough guy” who has “fooled a lot of people,” including previous presidents. “He fooled Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden—he didn’t fool me,” Trump said. “I speak to him a lot about getting this thing done. And I always hang up and say, well, that was a nice phone call. And then missiles are launched into Kyiv or some other city, and (I say) strange,” Trump said, per Reuters. “And after that happens three or four times, you say the talk doesn’t mean anything.”
  • Trump said a deal had been reached for other NATO members to buy billions of dollars in US-made weapons to send to Ukraine. “We make the best equipment, the best missiles, the best of everything, the European nations know that, and we made a deal today,” he said, per the Guardian. “We are going to be sending them weapons, and they’re going to be paying for them.”
  • “I have to tell you, Europe has a lot of spirit for this war,” Trump said, per the Times. “When I first got involved, I didn’t think they did, but they do.” He said he wanted to stress that “this is not Trump’s war.”

How will this fiasco end?

Will Russia bow down and kiss Donny’s fat white ass?

In the first six months of his second term, President Donald Trump has demonstrated his love for three things: deals, tariffs, and ultimatums.

He got to combine these passions during his Oval Office meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Monday. Only moments after the two leaders announced a new plan to get military aid to Ukraine, Trump issued an ominous 50-day deadline for Russian President Vladimir Putin to agree to a ceasefire. “We’re going to be doing secondary tariffs if we don’t have a deal within 50 days,” Trump told the assembled reporters.

The threat is unlikely to change Putin’s calculus, however, or bring the conflict to a near-term conclusion. Instead, Trump’s deadline is likely to make his own life more difficult, limiting his future flexibility, putting the settlement he craves farther out of reach, and forcing him to take steps that harm rather than advance U.S. interests.

Trump’s intention to impose “secondary tariffs” on Russia if Putin does not meet his deadline was not well-explained in his press conference with Rutte. Nor was it immediately clear if the planned punishment for Putin’s continued intransigence would include tariffs on Russian trade with the United States or “secondary sanctions” on Russia’s trading partners — or some combination of the two.

Whatever the details, however, looming economic consequences are unlikely to intimidate Putin or convince him to accept an early ceasefire. For starters, if Trump is indeed talking about tariffs on Russian trade with the United States, then his threat is an empty one. The United States imported only about $3 billion in goods from Russia in 2024, meaning that U.S. tariffs will impose little, if any, new costs on Moscow.

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/trump-50-day-deadline-russia/

I am sorry but this tariff thing is a cop-out to avoid doing the hard work of finding a good negotiated ceasefire.

We will see what Vlad the Invader has to say.

This is too good to ignore.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

“Screw It!” Is That What Little Marco Is Saying?

This is the feeling I get from the so-called talks that are going on about the conflict in Ukraine….it seems that after promising to end this conflict on day one the US has had about 100 days and we are NO closer to a ‘peace’ deal.

To make matters worse the SecState Rubio has is throwing up his hands and possibly walking away from the negotiations.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Friday that the US may be ready to “move on” from efforts for a Russia-Ukraine peace deal if there is not progress in the coming days. Speaking in Paris after a marathon day of landmark talks among US, Ukrainian, and European officials, Rubio said the discussions had been constructive and produced an outline for steps toward peace. “We’re not going to continue with this endeavour for weeks and months on end,” Rubio said, per the BBC. The US, he said, has “other priorities to focus on.”

  • After weeks of efforts by the Trump administration to broker a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine have failed to bring an end to the fighting, Rubio said the US administration wants to decide “in a matter of days whether or not this is doable in the next few weeks,” the AP reports.
  • “The president has spent 87 days at the highest level of his government repeatedly taking efforts to bring this war to an end,” Rubio said, per the Washington Post. “We are now reaching a point where we need to decide and determine whether this is even possible or not, which is why we’re engaging both sides.”
  • The high-level talks hosted by France Thursday were the first time since President Trump’s inauguration that top American, Ukrainian, and European officials are known to have met together to discuss an end to the war. French officials said a new meeting in the same format is expected in London in the coming days. Rubio said he could join that meeting, expected early in the week.
  • Rubio and presidential envoy Steve Witkoff have helped lead U.S. efforts to seek peace. Several rounds of negotiations have been held in Saudi Arabia. Witkoff has met three times with Vladimir Putin, Rubio said.
  • Moscow has effectively refused to accept a comprehensive ceasefire that Trump has pushed and Ukraine has endorsed. Russia has made it conditional on a halt in Ukraine’s mobilization efforts and Western arms supplies, which are demands rejected by Ukraine.
  • At least two people were killed and dozens injured in Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities overnight, the Telegraph reports. “This is how Russia began this Good Friday—with ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, Shaheds—maiming our people and cities,” Volodymyr Zelensky said.

Who knew well pretty much everyone that has a brain that his promise was nothing more than a fanciful LIE.

But then that is what is expected from Little Donny and his Merry band of sycophants….lies and broken promises

I am not surprised….are you?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Jive Talkin’

The US-Ukraine-Russia mash-up has been in the news lately…..

After all the back and forth between the three [parties recently the Trump admin came up with a plan…Zelensky balked….then he was open to the talks between US and Russia to help end the war with a ceasefire…

But Zelensky held on to his strict policy of no territory for peace….

President Volodymyr Zelensky explained his understanding of the ceasefire proposed by Ukrainian and American officials this week, saying his country would not make any territorial concessions. Additionally, Kiev expects “strong steps” from President Donald Trump should Moscow reject the plan.

Discussing the ceasefire proposal on Wednesday, Zelensky said, “We are fighting for our independence. Therefore, we will not recognize any occupied territories as Russia’s,” adding, “Our people have fought for this, our heroes died. How many injured, how many passed. No one will forget about it… This is the most important red line. We will not let anyone forget about this crime against Ukraine.”

Zelensky’s refusal to give up territory makes it unlikely the Kremlin will agree to the ceasefire, as Russian officials insist the five Ukrainian provinces annexed by Moscow will never be returned to Kiev. Additionally, Russia says it is seeking a permanent end to the conflict, not a short-term truce.

https://libertarianinstitute.org/news/zelensky-kiev-wont-cede-territory-wants-strong-us-response-if-russia-rejects-ceasefire/

Then Putin said that he was open to the proposal of a ceasefire ‘but with condition’….

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signaled that he’s open to a ceasefire in Ukraine but that he has “questions” about the 30-day US-Ukraine proposal that need to be discussed.

“The idea itself is the right one, and we definitely support it,” Putin said, according to The New York Times. “But there are questions that we need to discuss, and I think that we need to talk them through with our American colleagues and partners.”

The Russian leader listed potential conditions for a 30-day truce, including a guarantee that Ukraine wouldn’t be supplied with more weapons. “We also want guarantees that during the 30-day ceasefire, Ukraine will not conduct mobilization, will not train soldiers, and will not receive weapons,” he said, according to RT.

Putin also questioned who would monitor the ceasefire. “Who will determine where and who has violated a potential ceasefire agreement along a 2,000-kilometer line? Who will attribute blame for any violations? These are all questions that require thorough examination from both sides,” he said.

The Russian leader said any long-term peace deal needs to address the “root causes” of the war. He made the comments as US envoy Steve Witkoff arrived in Russia to discuss the proposal. Yuri Ushakov, a Kremlin official, said Witkoff would be holding a closed-door meeting with Putin.

(antiwar.con)

Then this happened….A joint statement between the US and Ukraine that was released after talks in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday said that Ukraine had “expressed readiness to accept the US proposal to enact an immediate, interim 30-day ceasefire, which can be extended by mutual agreement of the parties, and which is subject to acceptance and concurrent implementation by the Russian Federation.”

All this back and forth…will he, won’t he made me think of the song by the BeeGees….Jive Talking.

This will fall apart because I do not think anyone really wants an end to this thing….Russia agreed to lift some of the sanctions and Zelensky agrees to keep the aid flowing…..but that is not a true reason for a ceasefire just a lull.

Is this real or is it just a dangerous game?

More to come.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Is He A Russian Asset?

This post is NOT an endorsement of this ever trending meme.

Let me say here and now that I am not saying he is only that some things that are being done could lead people into believing this conspiracy.

One of my favorite movies is the original “Manchurian Candidate”….and when I saw this article and all the memes going around about Trump I had to include it in my post….

Almost overnight, Washington under Trump has turned against its post-war Western allies, threatened to end Nato, halted aid to Ukraine and publicly humiliated its leader, adopted the Russian version of the cause of the war, stopped the Pentagon from operating psy and cyber ops against Russia, and started talks to end US sanctions and to relaunch Nord Stream pipelines moving natural gas between Russia and Europe.

Whether Trump is a card-carrying Russian agent, an asset or merely a useful idiot is immaterial. The end result is that he is threatening to end the whole transatlantic alliance that has roughly defined what we call “the West” since 1945, and potentially realigning the United States with Russia. This may not be as shocking as many people seem to think.

Let’s not forget that the two countries were allies during the second world war. And shortly after their historic rapprochement with Mao’s China, Henry Kissinger told Richard Nixon that in the decades ahead, the US might have to realign with Russia to balance geopolitical power against a resurgent China. Now I am not criticising or applauding any of these developments, but merely observing with a great deal of trepidation and also some amusement.

https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3301172/donald-trump-real-life-manchurian-candidate

But I will admit that some of the actions taken by the Trump Administration is somewhat suspect.

Trump’s War Department has been told to stand down….

Russia has been pretty happy with the United States lately, and the latest news out of the Pentagon will likely continue that streak. US officials tell CBS News that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has issued an order to US Cyber Command to suspend planning against Russia for now, including any offensive digital initiatives. It’s not clear what spurred the directive, and the New York Times notes that the “precise scope and duration of the Defense Department order is not clear, as the line between offensive and defensive cyberoperations is often a blurry one.”

But the paper adds that Hegseth’s move is a “huge gamble” for the Trump administration, with US officials warning that Russia continues to try to infiltrate US networks, including via ramped-up ransomware attacks. “The order could derail some of the command’s most high-profile missions involving a top US digital adversary, including in Ukraine,” the Record notes. On Sunday, national security adviser Mike Waltz told CNN’s State of the Union that he’d been previously unaware of Hegseth’s order, but he insisted that “there will be all kinds of carrots and sticks to get this war [in Ukraine] to an end,” per CBS.

Why then the order?

Plus Russia is smiling ear to ear on the dust up between Trump and Zelenskyy….made Putin happy….

Now those Ukrainian refugees are about to lose their status here under Trump….

Under the Biden administration, more than 1.8 million migrants from various nations were allowed into the US via temporary humanitarian parole programs. Now, the newest White House occupants seem further intent on undoing that initiative: A senior Trump official and three other sources tell Reuters that the Trump administration plans to yank legal status for 240,000 Ukrainian refugees who fled the Russian invasion to come to the US, with an internal email from Immigration and Customs Enforcement showing those refugees could then be possibly fast-tracked for deportation.

The Telegraph calls the anticipated move, which could come as soon as April, an “extraordinary reversal” of President Biden’s open arms to refugees from the war-torn country. The report comes amid increasing tensions between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, which worsened last week during Zelensky’s visit to the White House to discuss a peace plan involving Ukraine and Russia. Reuters notes, however, that this planned move on the refugees was in the works before Friday’s tense meeting, and that it’s just part of Trump’s desire to take away legal status from the full range of immigrants who came into the US under the Biden parole programs.

That includes 70,000 Afghans here after fleeing the Taliban, as well as 530,000 or so Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans; the latter group could see their legal status pulled as soon as this month, say Reuters’ sources. During his campaign, Trump had vowed to undo the programs, saying they crossed the boundaries of US law. The Kyiv Independent notes that about 5.2 million Ukrainians have taken shelter abroad, most settling in countries in the EU, as the war in Ukraine wages on. A Homeland Security official tells Reuters that the department has no comment at this time. The White House didn’t respond to the news agency’s request for comment.

Sorry but this sound like he has something special going on with Russia.

But the meme that has been flying around social media that in 1987 Trump was recruited by the KGB….

In the last few days, several U.S. media outlets have been reporting that three former KGB agents of the old Soviet Union now allege that it began grooming Donald Trump as their deceived asset in the 1980s. The KGB (Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti), established in 1954, thus near the beginning of the Cold War, was the Soviet Union’s foreign intelligence and domestic security agency. (Of course, those Communists tried to do that with other people.)

These former KGB agents claim this happened mostly for two reasons: (1) Donald Trump’s first wife, Ivana, was a modeling immigrant from Czechoslovakia, an Eastern European nation then a satellite of the Soviet Union, and (2) Donald’s father Fred was a very successful real estate tycoon in the greater New York City area. Then, according to these former agents, the KGB learned from its data gathered on Donald that he is a classic narcissist susceptible to flattery. That’s what the Soviets, and later, the Russians, seized upon when Donald was trying to build a big Trump hotel in Moscow. By various means they impacted Donald to favor Russia, hate NATO, and question the USA’s opposition to Russia.

The Hill reported last Wednesday (“Was 40-year old Trump recruited by the KGB?“), “The former head of Kazakhstan’s intelligence service, Alnur Mussayev, recently claimed in a Facebook post that Donald Trump was recruited by the KGB in 1987, when the 40-year-old real-estate mogul first visited Moscow.” Mussayev provides no documentary evidence” because “he alleged that Trump’s file is in Vladimir Putin’s hands.”

The Hill further reports, “Several years ago, Yuri Shvets, a former KGB major now resident in Washington, D.C., served as one of the key sources for Craig Unger’s best-selling book, American Kompromat: How the KGB Cultivated Donald Trump, and Related Tales of Sex, Greed, Power, and Treachery.”

The Hill continues, “Just after Mussayev made his claim, another ex-KGB officer living in France, Sergei Zhyrnov, categorically endorsed the allegations in an interview with a Ukrainian journalist. According to Zhyrnov, Trump would have been surrounded 24/7 by KGB operatives, including everyone from his cab driver to the maid servicing his hotel room. Zhyrnov said that Trump’s every move would have been recorded and documented, and that he could have been either caught in a “honey trap” (“All foreign-currency prostitutes were KGB — one hundred percent,” he said) or perhaps recorded bribing Moscow city officials in order to promote his idea of building a hotel in the Soviet capital.”

(patheos.com)

Again please do not assume that I believe any of these accusations all I am doing is pointing out there is some evidence that could lead one into the mind set.

If you have a point make it without going too damn nuts.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Trumpian Ignorance Of International Affairs

I have been saying this person is a ninny for at least a decade….but he fires off his mouth before his brain is loaded….his most recent stupidity came when talking about Ukraine….

President Trump on Tuesday appeared to blame Ukraine for starting its war with Russia, despite the fact that it was Russia that invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Responding to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s anger that Ukraine was not invited to Tuesday’s US-Russia talks, and his assertion that Ukraine won’t agree to any peace deal it wasn’t a part of negotiating, Trump said, per CNN:

  • “I think I have the power to end this war, and I think it’s going well. But today I heard, ‘Oh well, we weren’t invited.’ Well, you been there for three years. You should’ve ended it after three years. You should’ve never started it. You could’ve made a deal.”

Trump also falsely claimed Zelensky has just a 4% approval rating, Axios reports. As for the supposed “deal” Ukraine could have made, Trump said, per the BBC, that it “would have given them almost all of the land, everything, almost all of the land—and no people would have (been) killed, and no city would have been demolished.” He said Russia wants “to stop the savage barbarianism.” As for whether Ukraine is an equal member of peace negotiations, he wouldn’t answer the question directly, the Hill reports, but only said, “Their people are being killed, and I think they have to make peace. I said that was not a good war to go into, and I think they have to make peace. That’s what I think.”

His lack of knowledge is troubling and a bit clown-like.

How can anyone with half a brain take this babbling buffoon seriously?

Then there is wannabe dictator calling someone a dictator….(god I love this stuff)….

The war of words is heating up between Donald the Orange and Ukraine’s Zelensky….Trump’s newest attack is a personal one….

President Trump doubled down on his attacks on Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday, a day after he blamed Ukraine for starting a war that began with Russia’s invasion. In a Truth Social post, Trump accused Zelensky of talking the US into spending $350 billion “to go into a War that couldn’t be won.” Trump called Zelensky a “Dictator without Elections” and said he “better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left.” The president described the war as one that Zelensky, “without the U.S. and ‘TRUMP,’ will never be able to settle,” Politico reports.

“He refuses to have Elections, is very low in Ukrainian Polls, and the only thing he was good at was playing Biden ‘like a fiddle,'” Trump said of Zelensky. Earlier Wednesday, Zelensky pushed back against Trump’s remarks about Ukraine starting the war, saying the president is in a “disinformation bubble” influenced by Russia. Vladimir Putin has called for Ukraine to hold elections, which are not allowed during wartime under Ukrainian law, the Wall Street Journal reports.”

This situation is getting interesting but calling Zelensky a dictator is pot calling the kettle black.

Trump will keep up the pressure or at least the verbal pressure for as long as possible….

President Donald Trump continued to attack Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday, asserting in a social media post that the U.S. was duped into spending billions to help Ukraine defend itself following Russia’s 2022 invasion — and himself seemingly threatening the country’s existence.

“Think of it, a modestly successful comedian, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, talked the United States of America into spending $350 Billion Dollars, to go into a War that couldn’t be won, that never had to start, but a War that he, without the U.S. and ‘TRUMP,’ will never be able to settle,” the president wrote in a post on Truth Social. “A Dictator without Elections, Zelenskyy better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/19/trump-attacks-zelenskyy-as-a-dictator-without-elections-who-duped-us-00204881

I love it a moderately successful business man and calling Z-Man a modestly successful comedian….who writes his stuff?

Where will this battle go from here?

More words or will someone find some action to be had?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Ukraine Peace Talks

Ukraine news and the Little Marco show.

It is more talks for a ceasefire that could turn into something good….if you believe that then I think you are delusional….

The US and Russia to meet and discuss the conflict in Ukraine….

Top Trump administration officials are set to travel to Saudi Arabia next week to hold talks with Russian officials to discuss bringing the war in Ukraine to an end, multiple media outlets reported on Sunday.

The delegation is expected to include Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, and Steve Witkoff, President Trump’s Middle East envoy.

Rubio spoke with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, in a phone call on Saturday, following up on President Trump’s recent call with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“The Secretary re-affirmed President Trump’s commitment to finding an end to the conflict in Ukraine. In addition, they discussed the opportunity to potentially work together on a number of other bilateral issues,” the State Department said in a readout of the Rubio-Lavrov call.

Ukrainian officials said they were not invited to the talks in Saudi Arabia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview that aired Sunday that he will “never accept any decisions between the United States and Russia about Ukraine” if Ukrainian officials don’t participate in the negotiations.

While it’s still unclear how the war will end, the Trump administration’s policy toward Russia is a dramatic shift from the Biden administration. After Russia invaded Ukraine, President Biden refused to speak with Putin despite acknowledging the risk of nuclear was at its highest point at any time since the Cuban missile crisis.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken also refused to engage in any meaningful diplomacy with Lavrov, holding only brief conversations with him about prisoner exchanges after the invasion.

(antiwar.com)

Say what?

The US and Russia to meet to discuss Ukraine?

Not a fan of this conflict but would it not be good idea to include the country most effected….in this case Ukraine?

I have a problem excluding the very nation that is dealing with the ravishes of war.

National Security Adviser Mike Waltz discussed some of the core issues for Donald Trump in the upcoming talks on ending the war in Ukraine. He did not confirm that Ukraine would be involved in the talks. 

On Fox News Sunday, Waltz explained, “Number one, it has to be a permanent end to the war, not a temporary end to the war. Number two, this can’t be ended on the battlefield. This has turned into a World War I-style meat grinder of human beings.” He continued, “Number three, I talked about how the structure of our aid has to change. Then number four, we’re talking about economic integration going forward as the best arbiter of peace.”

(libertarian institute.org)

Anyone that has been interested in the war and following the progress….can they see Ukraine agreeing to any of this?

Of course not.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday that Ukraine will “not recognize” upcoming talks between the US and Russia and denied that his country was invited to participate.

“Ukraine will not accept. Ukraine knew nothing about this. And Ukraine regards any negotiations about Ukraine without Ukraine as having no results,” Zelensky told reporters while visiting the UAE.

…

Zelensky denied claims from US officials that Ukraine was invited. “Ukraine will not take part in the negotiations. Ukraine did not know they were planned. And the visit to the region was planned long before the US decided to meet Russia there,” he said.

…

Zelensky has said that European countries should be involved in the talks, but that idea has been rejected by both the US and Russia. Lavrov said Monday that most European leaders aren’t interested in peace.

(antiwar.com)

Just another waste of time and energy.

Ukraine needs a seat at this ‘shit show’

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”